For almost two decades the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) has played a crucial role in monitoring the national economy of Bangladesh by providing direction in formulating macroeconomic policies backed up with in-depth analyses.

This task is carried out under the Centre’s flagship programme: the Independent Review of Bangladesh’s Development (IRBD) programme. This programme undertakes periodic assessments and analysis of the national economy.

The national budget is the basis of CPD’s annual monitoring exercise. In Bangladesh, the government announces the national budget for the financial year in the first week of June. So, throughout April to June, we bring out a series of reports based on rigorous research. These reports examine a range of areas including: the state of the economy prior to the national budget; recommendations for the budget makers; an immediate analysis of the national budget; and a detailed review of the national budget. CPD organises a variety of activities such as: press briefings and dialogues and hosts a live TV talk show series.  Our researchers write op-eds, make media appearances, and participate at discussions to make a big impact with CPD’s analysis.

Our activities may vary according to the ongoing political situation of the country, the immediate economic concerns and the receptivity of the government. However,  our work is generally developed in complementation with the national policy environment.

Although CPD had been working on annual budget monitoring and related activities for a long time, and had clearly had an impact,, the story of CPD’s work, the interrelation of CPD activities and the context, and the impact of the work, had never actually been documented.

Through engaging with the Think Tank Initiative (TTI), under the TTI Matching Grant programme and the Policy Engagement and Communications (PEC) programme, CPD’s Dialogue and Communication Division have been building CPD’s capacity around communication tools and practices.

Both these programmes complemented each other and have played a crucial role, and as a result, of this work, we have participated in various PEC activities including webinars, and in face-to-face workshops in Nepal and Dhaka which focused on communication tools and practices.

The idea of creating a video story to illustrate this year’s annual budget-related activities came from the Dhaka workshop where, CPD’s Communication Team was exposed to some new tools for communicating policy influencing work.

We decided to practice our new skills and created a video solely with in-house capacity.  This was a learning experience for us in many ways. Our senior management, was very appreciative of this initiative and the new format for communicating our work.

We consider this documentary as a work in progress. A new initiative to give our video a more professional look is already underway.
 
Making the video, and more importantly telling the story of one of CPD’s important annual exercises, was an enriching experience and a huge learning opportunity for us. Though still a work in progress, we are happy to be able to share this video with our peers who may also find story-telling a useful communication tool.

 

Showcase exhibit #1:  CPD’s video story illustrating their annual budget-related activities

 

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This post has been produced as part of the Think Tank Initiative’s Policy Engagement and Communications (PEC) programme. However, these are the author’s personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of TTI. You can find all ongoing outputs related to this project via the PEC mini-site on Research to Action. To get updates from the PEC programme and be part of the discussion sign-up to our RSS or email updates. You can also follow our progress via Twitter using the following hashtag #ttipec.

Feature image courtesy of CPD